Soros's Economics Conference

A draft of the agenda (pdf) for the inaugural conference of the Institute for New Economic Thinking has been obtained by FutureOfCapitalism.com, and it's pretty interesting stuff for anyone who had imagined that something funded with $50 million from George Soros would just be a bunch of left-wing propaganda from someone who thinks the big problem is that university economics departments are doing too much indoctrination of students in the virtues of unfettered free markets. We reported yesterday that Bruce Caldwell, a biographer of F.A. Hayek, will be speaking at the opening night dinner. Other scheduled speakers include Edmund "Ned' Phelps, of Columbia University's Center on Capitalism and Society. When Professor Phelps won the Nobel prize a few years back the New York Sun devoted an entire editorial to kvelling about it. Also speaking will be Edward Prescott, another Nobel laureate whose views were generally lauded in a New York Sun editorial written after Professor Prescott appeared at a lunch in New York of the Manhattan Institute. University of Chicago's Eugene Fama, whose comments we've reported on here and here, is also a scheduled speaker.